Listen Holy Suriyani Raza Qurbana

Suriyani or Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, is the language that was widely used in the Middle East until 8th century, before Arabic replaced it. Saint Thomas, the Apostle introduced Christianity in India. It is natural that St Thomas used Syriac for spreading gospel as it was the mother tongue of Jesus and his twelve disciples. Even today, Syriac is the liturgical language of a number of Christian Churches in India. Parts of their liturgy are still sung in Syriac.

East Syriac and West Syriac are the two dialects of Syriac. There are differences in the scripts, vowel system and pronunciation for these two dialects, but both these dialects have similar vocabulary grammatical structure.

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The Holy Raza Qurbana presented here is in East Syriac, the one used in the Syro-Malabar Church, a group of Catholic Saint Thomas Christians. The Quddasa (Anaphora) used in this Raza is named after Mar Addai and Mari, the disciples of Mar Thoma. It is the oldest Anaphora that is still in use by the Syro-Malabar Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Church. It highlights the Christ experience of Mar Thoma Sliha. It was the first fully developed liturgy evolved without the influence of Greek and Latin ideologies.

The music in this page was taken with permission from the Suriyani Raza Qurbana - Vol. 1, published by Fr George Plathottam.